Rights Group oppose tenure extension for Yar'Adua

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA, HURIWA, a development focused non-Governmental organization has on Sunday strongly urged President Umaru Musa Yar’adua to reject the recent recommendation of the Electoral Reform Panel’s white paper review committee headed by the Federal Attorney General and Minister of justice Mr. Michael Aondoakaa that he extends his current tenure which ought to wind up in 2011 to 2013 and to immediately sack the Federal Attorney General for his plot to undermine the 1999 constitution which he swore to protect and respect. The Rights Group also called on the leadership of the Nigeria Bar Association to discipline Michael Andoakaa if it turns out that he is masterminding the current agitation within the Federal Executive Council of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua for a tenure extention.

A national Daily had recently reported that facts have emerged that the controversial tenure extension plot which scuttled last attempt by the National Assembly in the immediate past dispensation to review the 1999 constitution has resurfaced as the panel set up by President Umaru Musa Yar’adua to review the white paper on electoral reforms has recommended that the President should stay in office beyond 2011. The Panel headed by the Federal Attorney General and without broad representation of the six geo-political zones wants the president to stay beyond his constitutional tenure limitation in order, according to their thinking, to perfect the so-called unbundling of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

HURIWA in a statement issued and endorsed by its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko after it held an emergency meeting of its enlarged executive committee called on Nigerians to brace up to defend what it calls ‘our hard won democracy’ by not allowing reactionary forces in the garb of political appointees in the current dispensation to scuttle and destabilize the advancement of transparent and accountable democracy by the surreptitious plots to introduce tenure extension for any current political office holders including President Umaru Musa Yar’adua who was elected for only four year tenure in compliance with section 135[2] which clearly and unambiguously provides that the ‘’president SHALL vacate his office at the expiration of a period of FOUR YEARS commencing from the date when [a] in the case of a person first elected as president under this constitution, he took an oath of allegiance and the oath of office.’’

The Rights Group called on the President to sack the Federal Attorney General for contemplating to suggest that he participate in the ongoing plots to undermine the provisions of the 1999 constitution under which he[president Umaru Musa Yar’adua] was elected even as HURIWA stated that the action and activities of the electoral reforms white paper review committee under the leadership of the chief law officer of the country amounts to treason and a gross violation of several provisions of the 1999 constitution including chapter four which guarantees civil political rights and the right of Nigerians to freely decides who governs them under a constitutionally guaranteed term limit and for how long and also section 1[1] of the constitution which states that ‘’this constitution is supreme and its provisions SHALL have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria’’.

HURIWA stated that the tenure extension plots by the Michael Andookaa-led panel is capable of triggering popular revolts and mass action by the Nigerian people and therefore could destabilize the gains that Nigeria has achieved since 1999 when civil rule returned after several decades of brutal military dictatorship just as the Rights Group called on the President to categorically and publicly denounce any covert or overt plots being hatched by all reactionary forces in and out of this Government to undermine the 1999 constitution because those suggesting tenure extension are selfish, unpatriotic and in fact are to be treated as war- mongers.

The Rights Group indicated that it will join hands with all lovers of Nigeria through legitimate means within the confines of the rule of law to ensure that the current evil plot to extend the constitutionally guaranteed tenure of any of the political office holders does not see the light of the day because the actualization of tenure extension under any guise could spell doom for corporate Nigeria.